I'm going to try to shorten up my blog entries since I have this nasty habit of writing the great American novel for every post and I know most gamers have a touch of ADD or at least I do....:)
That said...
I've found there are 4 main types of game control these days with some crossover between PC and console gaming.
1. Keyboard
2. Game pad
3. Joystick
4. Motion sensing
Keyboards are the classic PC game controller eclipsed only by the joystick (at least till DOOM came out). It's the choice of most gamers on PC's (not that I've seen a keyboard on a game system since Colecovision). A whole enthusiast market has grown up around ever cooler features like custom keys, LCD displays and backlighting so you can see the keys in the dark (most PC gamers aren't touch typists ).
Gamepads showed up with the first modern personal game systems like the Nintendo NES with similar controls to the arcade shooters of the 80's. Gamepads were a successor to the joystick as games developed more complex and numerous controls than it could feasibly handle. Before gamepads got popular there were (and still are) joysticks that had upwards of a dozen special buttons to try to accommodate newer games with more control options.
You can get gamepads that work with PC's but you won't find much use for them unless you're a console gamer playing a multiplatform game on both PC and console. Some people swear by gamepads, I swear at them mostly because they're always too small for my big hands and it doesn't feel natural to me. That's just me, however and your mileage may vary.
Joysticks are the undisputed classic multiplatform game controller dating all the way back to the first Atari VCS systems. Back when most games were based on 2 dimensions and simple control options these were the ideal choice offering the most accurate control available. There were game "paddles" and "trackball" controllers but they were just a variation on the joystick targeted at specific games like Pac-Man, Centipede or Missile Command. (Am I dating myself here?)Joysticks are great but are relegated to secondary status these days because they just don't work out as well for FPS or RPG games and are largely relegated to driving titles and flying simulations.
I'd have to add Steering Wheel controllers in this group as well since most simply offer an alternate physical controller that nonetheless sends the same signals as a joystick controller. I personally prefer wheel and pedal setups for driving games since it's more natural and allows for more subtle movement than a joystick can offer.
Motion sensing got popular with the Nintendo Wii and is probably responsible for more broken TV screens than any other gaming platform :) The whole idea behind motion controllers is that your body movements control the action on the screen instead of a key press or pressure on a control.
The Wii controller is more like a wireless joystick from the standpoint of having to actually hold on to something to control your game but that's where the similarity ends. It's got internal accelerometers, Bluetooth and infrared emitters that transmit signals created by your movements to the Wii. This video explains it more in depth Wii Remote The new Sony Playstation Move is a similar system to the Wii remote utilizing a hand held controller setup.
The newest popular motion controller is Microsoft's Kinect. Kinect doesn't use a separate controller but rather can track body movements using an infrared based motion sensing system kind of like motion detectors in an alarm system but a lot more sensitive with a lot more processing going on to track movement.
If you were to view a darkened room with with infrared goggles while a Kinect was active you'd see most of the room front of it painted with thousands of small dots.
Me, I'm still a joystick and keyboard guy. I play FPS games with keyboard and mouse but I use a trackball mouse which I believe gives me a slight edge in FPS titles since the cursor motion is more precise and sensitive with less wasted motion on my part. However, someone playing the same title with a motion controller has a more natural relationship to game control since there's less translation in the way you think about moving around in a game. For example; In most FPS games to move right I'm going to probably have to hit the "D" key on the keyboard and the "W" key to move forward.
The same movement sequence on a motion controller can literally be a hand gesture to the right and then to the front. It's also possible that with adequate tracking of player movement you could easily surpass a keyboard simply because a keyboard is not that different from the old joystick controllers(1) when used for movement in a game. It's a simple button that's either on or off without many subtleties other than how fast you press that button. A motion controller that's sensitive enough could pick up far more information by orders of magnitude compared to ON and OFF while offering more precise control.
I've already seen applications of the Kinect being used with PC's for desktop control and even as a stand-in for a mouse. There's a music video whose video portion was made almost entirely of sensor data captured from the Kinect sensor. It reminded me of those pop videos from the 80's that had strange video effects.
So there's no doubt motion sensing is a popular technology. The idea has been popular for years with TV shows like CSI:Miami using motion sensitive control to manipulate screen images. It was the stuff of fantasy 5 years ago but it appears it's a mature enough technology to be almost mainstream now.
I'm hoping for a gaming future with motion sensing and holographic projection for display!
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